Reunion - Chapter Twelve

Reunion

Chapter Twelve

Revelations

When Stephan Court came round he found himself strapped into large padded chair not unlike a dentist would use. His hands and arms were bound to the arms of the chair and his legs wrapped tightly together with duct tape. More tape wound round his chest pinning him back in his seat.

The most obvious thing was the dazzling harsh white electric light of fluorescents tubes. Partly it was the after effects of being tranquillised and partly it was the strangeness of artificial light having lived outside with only natural daylight for so long. Though bound at the chest he could move his head and neck freely and felt only a little discomfort in doing so, his vision was still a slightly blurred as though he had sleep in his eyes.

Stephan looked around him. The first thing he saw was Ian Prince strapped into a similar chair a few feet to his right. Though it didn’t look like he was conscious yet.

The floor of the room they were in and to which their chairs were bolted was of solid stone tiles , the ceiling was some way above him and above the dazzling lights tubes so he could not make out just how far away it was, but he got the impression they were in quite a cavernous place. The wall in front was a dull gray with darker black squares outlined like more tiles but with a softer more metallic look to them. In front of that wall was some sort of control desk, like that you might see at a rock concert with a large number of slides and dials though there none of the tell-tale red lights glowing or blinking to indicate it had any power. Pushed up to the desk was a black leather high backed chair such as you might see in any modern office.

“Prince? Ian? Are you awake?”

Stephan asked looking at the similarly bound figure to his right. There was a slight stirring.

“Prince? Princey! “

This last invocation obviously connected with some deep instinct within Ian Prince’s brain and he jerked awake and then winced at the pain in the back of his head. He took a moment to take in his surroundings and remember what had happened. He tried struggling briefly against his bonds but didn’t get anywhere.

“Courty? Where are we?” He said finally realising he wasn’t alone.

“Some sort of cave cum control room. You ok?”

“Yeah I think so. I’ve had worse hangovers. Wish I didn’t remember the night before the morning after quite so vividly though.”

There was a brief electronic crackle from speaker set somewhere beyond the pool of light cast by the fluorescents and then the dark tiled wall in front of them resolved itself into actually being bank of large plasma screens now showing a close up of someone in a hog’s head mask. The image was about 15 feet across. There was several red lights glowing on the control desk and one brighter red flashing light just below the TV wall.

“Ah gentleman, you are awake.”

Came the voice over the tannoy with only a little distortion.

“Then I shall be with you shortly to introduce myself. In the meantime here is a little something to keep to occupied”

The figure in the pig mask disappeared and the screens flashed grey briefly before going back to showing individual images ,a bank of 15 screens 5 wide and three high. Prince and Court looked at the individual images and slowly it dawned on them that they were seeing different scenes from the island and these were probably live feeds to cameras watching the scene.

In one was a view of the main camp, another held a view of the final embers of the signal fire on the promontory with its collapsed cliff side path, another showed the wreck of the plane and another had a view of the small pool and the fresh water stream that had been their water source. Others showed key intersections in paths they had made in the forest with their treks for food and water.

All the key places on the island were under surveillance. Now and again the wind would move the trees in the shot or a creature would rustle in the undergrowth showing these were moving camera feeds not stills.

“We were being watched the whole time,” stated Prince.

“Looks that way.”

The tannoy crackled again.

“Not just watched, but recorded. “

Obviously whoever held them captive could listen on this room too.

“All your finest moments.”

A single image from one screen zoomed to fill the whole video wall and then with another dark grey flash it showed a dusk scene, the light just fading and there they all were clustered round the campfire, well most of them. Then over the speaker in the room came a sound feed, first it was distant murmuring then a muffled scream and a few minutes later Sean Rourke came tearing along the beach his tattered trousers held with one hand.

It was recording of him coming back to the group having been bitten by the snake. The image flickered again and this time it was the Speke twins up on the promontory , the whoosh of the signal flair came of the speaker followed by the shouts and screams as the brothers fell from the cliff path engulfed in pain. Both Court and Prince winced, closed their eyes and dropped their heads but they couldn’t do anything to block out the screams. Prince struggled against his bonds again but still made no headway.

The picture changed again this time in the distance was raft with Romney and Wiltshire on it and the sounds of the cheers from beach rang loud over the speaker. The image suddenly zoomed in to raft over the beach whilst the cheers continued, already the first sleek black dorsal fin could be seen in the background. They both knew what was coming next.

“Alright enough!” shouted Stephan into the room.

The sound snapped off and the screen went blank.

“So soon? Don’t you want to see my little pets perform again? After all my hard work training them” said the voice over the tannoy, “but there are so many highlights to watch. Well perhaps…..”

There was a change in the timbre of the voice , losing its electronic edge, “we can save some for later. We have slow motion available as well”

Someone had walked into the room and then emerged from the dark edge of the pool of light cast from the overheads. A medium built figure clad completely in a dark closely fitting overall with camouflage markings on it walked up in between the captives and the dark video wall. Covering his whole head was the pink rubber hogshead mask they had seen on the TVs.

The figure leant nonchalantly back against the control panel and the hogshead surveyed the two men tied in the chair.

“Ian Prince and Stephan Court. If I’d have to put money on it I wouldn’t have had you down as the last two”

“You’ve been doing it, all this. The killings, the mysterious ‘accidents’ ” said Stephan with an edge of realisation in his voice.

“Bastard!” spat Prince.

“Oh come now Prince…y”, the camouflaged figure elongated the phrase as though rolling it round his mouth and trying for the first time, “there’s no reason to be like that. Yet. You’ve not got to know me.”

“Who are you? What do you want? Why have you done all this?” the questions came tumbling from Stephan’s mouth.

“Let’s start with that first question shall we,” said the figure before them.

*

The figure’s hands reached up under the edges of the mask and with a swift movement pulled it forward and off to reveal a man of similar age to Court and Prince. He had dark brown hair, tousled by removing the mask and which which he now smoothed back into place. He paused a moment, lifting his chin and turning slightly from first one side then the other.
Prince and Court stared back, their expressions blank.

“Well yes I expected this. It has been a long time,” said the figure , “ perhaps this will jog your memory” he reached forward and pressed a button on the control desk.

The video wall burst into life showing a classic posed school boy portrait. The head and shoulders of a boy about 14 in a black blazer, white shirt and the blue and maroon striped tie of Broadway Grammar school for boys, wavy brown hair combed too neatly and exactly in a side parting.

Prince and Court looked at the image for a few seconds slight furrows on their brows trying to place the picture. They looked across to each other to see if either had any recollection. They both shrugged , as well as they could in their restraints, and looked back the figure in the room.

“What? Nothing?” said the figure a tone of exasperation in his voice, “it’s me. Jon Ryder!” the figure stood and waited for the recognition of his name to sink in, the haughty angle to how he held his head returned, like an actor waiting for the applause at a curtain call.

“Jon Ryder?” said Stephan.

“Oh right, you were in one of the other forms at BGSB weren’t you? Or was it the year below?” Prince looked pleased with himself at this feat of recollection.

“No!” snapped Jon Ryder, “no, no no!” he repeated and stamped his foot like a toddler having a tantrum in a supermarket.

“We were in the same year, the same form, 61Sc2. I sat behind you for the best part of seven years!” he exclaimed.

“Ryder. Right,” said Prince somewhat unconvincingly.

“Well look, Ryd..Jon,” Stephan said softly and trying to adopt a friendly tone, “whatever it was that Ian here did to you all those years ago, I’m sure he’s very sorry for it now.”

“Hang on. Whatever I did? I never did anything to him. How come it’s me that did something?”

“Well I didn’t do anything. I only vaguely recall the name.”

“Oh right, so of course it must be me who’s done something then. Charming.”

“Well no. It’s just that odds are it was you and the rugger buggers who picked on Jon and well you were the ring leader.”

“Now look here we had our fun now and then but why assume that anyone with grievance must have had a run in with me and the boys.”

“Well look I’m just being realistic, playing the percentages…..”

The two fell to bickering and arguing about who had done what to whom in the past at BGSB and what bullying really was, as though they were alone. All the time Jon Ryder stood there his breath getting louder and more ragged. He finally cracked.

“Stop it!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, “ you’re doing it again!”

Court and Prince’s attention snapped back to Ryder.

“Doing what again?” asked Stephan.

“Ignoring me! Don’t you see? I wasn’t bullied, I wasn’t picked on. I was ignored. For seven years I was completely ignored. A figure in the background. Not even picked last for the teams for British bulldog, but left their standing against the wall whilst you went off to start the game and I had to just join a side. Never picked to read by a teacher in English, chosen for a part in the school play, invited to the after school cricket knockabouts in the park, the meetings of the lunchtime computer club.”

He paused to draw breath.

“See I told you I hadn’t done anything to him, “ said Prince in the pause.

Court was about to turn to Prince to reply.

“Don’t you dare!” ordered Ryder. The two captives turned back to look at him.

“Well it sounds better than being picked on,” said Court.

“Really? Really? Have you any idea what it was like to go through school as a total non-entity, receiving no recognition anywhere , even the unwanted attentions of the bullies? Well you’re going to acknowledge me now, alright. Aren’t you eh?”

“Err yes James. Sorry Jon. Yes Jon” Stephan cursed himself silently for the slip up. Ryder glowered at him.

“Yes you will listen to how I did all this and you will acknowledge me for the person I am, what I have become.”

“A bleeding nutcase, that’s what you’ve become,” said Prince.
“Don’t antagonise him now!” hissed Stephan through a clenched smile.
“Yes Jon. We want to know all about it.”

Ryder regained some of his original composure and assured, haughty demeanour.

“I’ve been in control from the moment you arrived at Bangkok. It was my people who met you there, not Korda’s. Guy was my man and the plane crash was a controlled emergency landing done by remote control from here in my control centre.”

“That’s a lot of control,” said Prince tellingly.

Ryder ignored the remark and went on to explain in great detail how he had arranged for alcohol to be slipped into the orange juice, the flares to be labelled upside down, the cliff path weakened, the snakes released into the latrine, how he had had sharks trained to patrol the edge of the reef. Court and Prince sat listening as Ryder explained the whole sequence of events that had got them to where they were now. At the end Ryder paused and let it all sink in. After a moment’s contemplation Stephan Court spoke.

“How did you afford all this?” he indicated the room around him as best he could with his head, “ All that planning and implementation. It must have cost a fortune”

“Yes, well. I have done very well on the stock market over the years, got in early on some very good stocks, played the market, got out at the right time.”

Stephan thought for a moment and then said, “It’s your talent.”

“What? What is?”

“Your ordinariness. It’s a gift. Your ability to go unnoticed. Don’t you see? That’s how you really made your deals, you could slip in and acquire stocks without drawing attention. Like, like…” Court was struggling for the right phrase.

“A financial ninja, that’s what you were,” continued Prince realising the game Court was playing and going along with. If ever there was an ego to be massaged this was one that needed a full body work over and a happy ending.

“Well, er yes I wouldn’t go that far,” Ryder said blushingly slightly.

“Oh no it is. That’s it. You’re a financial ninja, moving in under cover of darkness. It’s been the same with the island, how you’ve been able to…” the words stuck slightly in Court’s throat, “achieve, all your aims.”

“Yes amazing. Such stealth, such execution” added Prince.

Ryder leant back against the control desk considering this new perspective on his life of what he saw as being ignored.

Stephan could see his approach was causing Ryder to stop and think, he was having an effect. Now was the time to try and push things a bit to get him and Prince safely out of there.

“So you see, in a way your early training in stealth came from Broadway. Really we were preparing you for your future brilliant career. We helped get you where we are today….”

Stephan and Prince held their collective breath waiting to see what would happen next. Ryder was silent for a few moments clearly considering what Stephan had said. Then he seemed to come to a decision and straighten up from the control desk.

“All very flattering and quite clever, but I’m not falling for it. You were just typical nasty oafish school boys, you didn’t care about me then and you don’t care about me now. You are just trying to save your own skins.”

Stephan and Ian’s heads dropped, the plan had not worked.

“There, you’ve said it yourself,” said Prince, “we were just typical nasty, oafish schoolboys. We didn’t do anything deliberately, we didn’t mean to ignore you, it’s not our fault we were just being what we were, nasty and oafish. You can’t punish us for that, it’s not fair.”

“Ah fair. What was it our maths teacher, Mr Watkins, used to say….oh yes I remember. ‘Life isn’t fair.’ And neither will your deaths be” Ryder said with a chuckle at his own bon mots.

He turned round for a moment and pressed a few keys on a keyboard by the edge of the control desk linked to a local monitor that the two captives couldn't see.

“Now after all this elaborate work to get this far you’ll expect me to have some equally fiendish way to finish you off. Well it’s true that I have just set the timer to a large number of explosive charges that will collapse this whole cave complex and I have a speed boat with my associates waiting in the bay to take me away, but unlike in the movies I’m not taking any chances.”

He spoke with his back still to the captives then with quick and easy movement he turned round and in his hand he held a small automatic pistol. He pointed it at Prince’s chest and fired four times in rapid succession.

The noise of the shots was deafening in the enclosed space. Ian Prince’s body jerked with each impact and he slumped forward as far as his bonds would allow , large patches of blood welled up through his shirt. Stephan’s mind was in a total state of panic as he realised he only had seconds to live. Ryder turned slightly to point the pistol at Stephan,

“Goodbye Court. You were not the worst of them, but even so,”

His finger squeezed the trigger and in that instant Court threw himself with all his might to the left whilst at the same time kicking his legs over to the right.

The chair turned lurched violently round and and then tipped over completely and crashed to the floor it’s back facing Ryder. Two bullets whizzed past Stephan as he toppled, a third hit the back of the chair and then he felt a stinging pain in his left shoulder, he’d been hit but he hoped the chair had taken most of the force out of the bullet. The force of the fall had broken the bonds on one arm and the other was bound to the arm of the chair which itself had become completely separated from the chair.

Ryder was still in shock himself from this unexpected turn of events then he regained some of his composure and pulled the trigger again pointing the gun at the back of the Court’s head visible above the back of the chair. There was a click but no loud report. He was out of ammunition.

“Damn!”

He turned back and pulled open a draw by the side of the control desk and began looking for a fresh clip of ammunition, he scrabbled about in the draw cursing under his breath. “Where is it? Where is it? God damn, I told Chiu to tidy this draw out! He will be in so much trouble when I’m done here.”

Stephan seized his one chance and rolling over away from the chair he struggled upright, his feet were still bound and he nearly overbalanced as he got up. He bunny hopped over towards Ryder who had his backturned to him and lunging forward, he swung the arm of the chair his wrist was bound to.

The jagged impromptu club struck Ryder on the side of the head with a sickening crunch and he collapsed to the floor, Stephan tumbled on top of him. For few moments Stephan was completely winded and just lay their on top of Ryder panting. Ryder himself was completely still, a trickle of blood running from his ear down the side of his face.

Suddenly a klaxon blared out and the room was bathed in orange light for a moment, then back to the normal cold light of the fluorescent tubes, then orange again. Up in the ceiling a warning light was flashing on and off.

“Your attention please!” came Ryder’s voice over the tannoy.

It seemed odd to Stephan to hear that voice again when its owner was currently unconscious and lying motionless underneath him.

“Your attention please! All personnel begin emergency evacuation procedures.Ten minutes to detonation.”

The message repeated itself. Stephan took in the words, ten minutes to detonation, ten minutes to get out of there. He also noted the “all personnel” so there would be others around, guards and the like to deal with. Well one thing at time. First he had to free his legs. Using the jagged end of the broken chair arm he was able to work through the duct tape that bound his legs. It seemed to take for ever to get through tough silvered tape but it was in fact only just over a minute as announced by Ryder’s automated tannoy.

“Nine minutes to detonation” came the voice followed by two more short bursts of the the Klaxon , the warning light continued to flash overhead.

Stephan got to his feet, his left side ached from where he had tumbled over into Ryder and his right shoulder felt hot and sore from the bullet wound but it didn’t seem to be getting much worse. He went over to check on Prince. The blood had continued to well out of his chest wounds and the front of his shirt and his lap were soaked in the dark sticky liquid. Stephan felt at his neck for a pulse but there was none. Prince was dead. He had to think about his own survival now.